Travel, Indian Style

So we set out into the dangerous night under the protection of our driver’s skill and experience.  He was a sheik gentleman in his late 40s or early 50s with a long yellowed beard, a toothy grin, and a habit of clicking his tongue when he disapproved of other driver’s behavior.  I am confident it was with no small amount of God’s help that we made the trip safely to Agra driving on a four lane highway in fog so dense that spotting the side of the road often required rolling down the window and putting one’s head out the window.  And speaking of heads out the window…the claustrophobic and disorienting atmospheric conditions created a high pressure front that met with a strong low pressure system driven by rapidly changing speeds and directions which resulted in a concentrated downpour on the highway/side of the car region when Barb bolted over the back seat with a case of car sickness.  To her credit, she handled the unexpected event with poise and style earning a 9.1/10 with her stunning full-torso-outside-the-moving-vehicle trick.  This was not to be the last of our road regurgitation adventures but, happily, the rest of us managed to keep our dizziness in check for the moment. 

 

After a few hours and a few failed attempts at catnapping we narrowly avoided a vicious pileup that surely would have taken our lives thanks to the skill and intuition of our driver.  Often on the roads in India large trucks will pull off to the side of the road with mechanical problems or because the driver wants a nap.  But occasionally they stop right in the middle of the road.  When this happens with little daylight and near zero visibility on the highway, one wonders how accidents aren’t more common.  Anyway, our driver slammed on the brakes and stopped us inches from a truck and became very agitated, quickly reversed a few feet and pulled around to the side of the truck to shout at the driver.  Not 30 seconds after we first hit the brakes another truck with a human cargo of commuting women came barreling through the fog and smashed into the truck we had narrowly missed.  Ah, how quickly disaster strikes!  The mangled cars were less than half the tale, but our driver didn’t keep us around long an soon moved up to enlist the help of other travelers in sorting out the wreckage.  So, we were spared and moved on, bobbing and weaving our way to Agra.

 

The Taj complex is remarkable in its symmetry and in its details, which are so elaborate and prevalent that it is difficult to fathom the process of its creation.  I’ll spare the touristy details to someone more qualified.  But we enjoyed a guided tour of the complex, many photos, and some clean restrooms before being taken on a wine and dine sales trap to a carpet manufacturer and a stone engraving/inlaying shop.  The company that Anil’s agent arranged our transport with apparently has some deals with tourist herders in Agra, but we eventually managed to escape.  At this point we were beyond exhausted and craved only a bite to eat and a horizontal surface.  We found both back at the YMCA and took a much-needed 6 hours to recuperate. 

 

At 3 am we met our driver again for a foggy trip to the airport, a characteristically relaxed navigation of security, and a flight to Raipur complete with vegetarian-option in-flight breakfast.  For the first time in days we landed in sunlight, and, recessing down a movable staircase were treated to cool, fresh air and birdsong as the light morning mist lifted.  We were expecting someone from the hospital to meet us, but imagine our surprise to find Anil’s cheeky grin outside the terminal doors.  He had driven the ambulance down to pick up his sister-in-law Shashi (again sp uncertain, sorry!) and we were only a few convenient hours away.  Ah such gracious hosts, and such driving!  Anil is apparently a little crazy even by Indian standards and wow, on straight roads, I don’t think we ever traveled forward without accelerating or braked without crunching into our neighbors on the benches in the rear compartment.  But there we found ourselves, careening down a narrow country road dodging oncoming traffic by margins well within the centimeter scale as Anil delivered his cacophonic symphony of motion.  On the way in we stopped to visit a village church, the first in the region, which is in the midst of repair planning to fix up some cracked supports and happened upon a tree whose name I’ve forgotten which lent us a bitter snack for the rest of the bumpy ride to Mungeli.

  

~ by packerk on January 3, 2009.